10 November 2010

Australia Needs 12 Large Subs for Security

10 November 2010

S-80 Spanish submarine (2500 tonnes), currently the largest western European submarines, has been proposed as one of candidates of new Australian submarine, but some analysts want a greater (photo : wiki)

AUSTRALIA will need 12 big, long-range submarines to help it shape its own strategic future.The region will be increasingly dominated by China, says Paul Dibb, author of the 1987 defence white paper.

In the wake of warnings about China's growing military power at the Ausmin talks, Professor Dibb will tell a Submarine Institute conference in Perth today it is time Australians took their strategic outlook much more seriously.

"We ignore our own unique strategic geography at our peril in the decades ahead," he will say.Having a large, more potent submarine force must be a central strategic priority for Australia and there should be bipartisan agreement politically about that, Professor Dibb will tell the conference.The boats should be built in Australia, he will say, and they should be fitted with powerful long-range weapons such as cruise missiles.

The current white paper has called for 12 long-range subs to be built in South Australia at an estimated cost of $36 billion, with the first of the boats to be operational from 2020.

"Too much of the defence debate in this country is preoccupied with the short term. There is a blindness in Australia towards the need to do our utmost to shape our own strategic future.

"We need to return to the fundamental importance of our strategic geography and focus on the potentially threatening historical changes that are about to occur to the geopolitical landscape in our part of the world."

Professor Dibb will stress that Australia needs a larger submarine force and a potent air force and he will deride the purchase for the navy of two giant military transports.

"We do not require two 27,000-tonne amphibious assault ships that will require protection by most of our surface, sub-surface and combat air patrol forces so they can put a token land force ashore."By 2030, China could have 100 quiet, modern submarines.

Australia needs a submarine force to protect its interests at sea against increasingly credible adversaries, he will say.

The boats need to be able to fight in a region extending from the eastern Indian Ocean to the South Pacific and from Southeast Asian waters, including the South China Sea, to the Southern ocean. They need to be able to work with allied navies in high-intensity combat.

The US has only 26 attack submarines in the Pacific compared with China's 62.